Objectives of pasture and range management; difference between native and improved grasslands; highland and lowland production systems; the potential and role of forage production; influence of climate on production objectives; foraging theory: relationships between forage quantity, quality and maturity versus animal output; production versus forage utilization; important forage crops (cereals, grain legumes, forage grasses, forage legumes, trees/shrub legumes, non-grass and non legume species of forage plans); important native and improved forage crops; importance of legumes in pastures; morphological response to grazing or browsing. Management of forage resources: fertilization; over sowing, stocking rates, herd structures, communal and commercial grazing strategies; Principles of Grassland and Range management. Application of GIS and remote sensing in range land management plan; economics of pasture and range management.
Objectives:
After taking this course, students will be able to
- Understand forage and pasture crops farming
- Differentiate taxonomy and eco-physiology of forage and pasture/range plants
- Understand succession theory and its application in grazing ecosystems
- Characterize biomes of rangelands
- Evaluate productivity of rangelands in relation to livestock production
- Perform biological competition functions of forage and pastures
- Study livestock-vegetation-environment relations
- Understand animal-plant-soil related principles and practices of range management
- Compute stocking rate of pasture lands
- Teacher: Yilkal Tadele